Talk! with Audrey

In celebration of Healthy Vision Month in May, the Focus on Diabetes™ initiative is launching The Next Step Eye Health Challenge to raise awareness of diabetes-related eye disease and the steps people can take to maintain better eye health. My guest is Dr. Robert Gabbay, the Chief Scientific and Medical Officer for the American Diabetes Association (ADA).

Does your back hurt? Could your back pain be something more? Perhaps, axial spondyloarthritis or axSpA, commonly known as inflammatory arthritis of the spine? My guests are, Dr. Hillary Norton a rheumatologist living with ankylosing spondylitis (AS), a form of axSpA and Jill, a patient living with non-radiographic axial spondyloarthritis (nr-axSpA), a form of axSpA.

In the US about 3 million people have Celiac disease, a serious genetic autoimmune disease. A gluten-free diet is currently the only available treatment, joining me with  information about innovations for people living a gluten free lifestyle, the chief scientific officer and co-founder of Provention Bio, Dr. Francisco Leon.

After a car accident almost claimed his life, Kenneth James Moore was overcome with a renewed sense of motivation to pursue the promise he had made to his mother at age eight—that he would unravel the mystery behind the disappearance of her youngest brother, Lt. Billy Weber, a B-29 Bomber pilot during WWII. This pledge led him to Saipan, a US-held island in the Pacific, bringing him face to face with the horrific realities of Japanese rule and the inspiration for his first novel and first instalment of a trilogy. Pieces of Wood explores a dark piece of World War II history not often talked about in the West, bringing to light the atrocities Imperial Japan inflicted on millions of innocent women.

Every moment of our lives, we make choices. Some of our choices can change the world, and some of our choices only change one moment of the day, but each choice we make has the potential to change the world for the better. Dr. Christopher Gilbert is a senior international ethics consultant and popular keynote speaker, co-founder of NobleEdge Consulting, and the author of  The Noble Edge: Reclaiming An Ethical World One Choice At A Time.

CONTRAVE® recently launch its Why Weight: Communicate initiative to address the gap in communication between patients and health care professionals when it comes to weight loss. The goal is to encourage adults to take control of their health by engaging in meaningful conversations about their weight with their doctors. Joining me with the results of the national survey, the most recent statistics on obesity in this country and the initiative, Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford, an obesity medicine physician scientist at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School.

According to Dr. Nate Link, the Chief Medical Officer at Bellevue Hospital, the nation’s oldest public Hospital, and the author of The Ailing Nation, Lessons from the Bedside for America’s Leaders, “Standards of leadership in our political world are sadly deficient.” Dr. Link is on a mission to bring evidence and politics together by using narratives of patient care and leadership challenges at Bellevue to underline what good leadership should look like.

According to Edward Jones and Age Wave’s latest study, "The Four Pillars of the New Retirement: What a Difference a Year Makes," following a year of unprecedented volatility across economic markets, physical and mental health and social justice issues; 76% of Americans credit the pandemic with helping them refocus on what’s most important in life.  Joining me to discuss the results: Ken Cella, Principal, Client Strategies Group, Edward Jones and Ken Dychtwald, PhD, Retirement specialist and Co-founder and CEO, Age Wave.

Chandler Crews was born with achondroplasia, a serious, progressive and lifelong condition that is the most common form of dwarfism. In 2010 at the age of 16, she made the choice to undergo a series of limb lengthening surgeries. In 2018, she founded The Chandler Project, a non-profit organisation dedicated to connecting people with achondroplasia resources and community.  Chandler joins me to share her personal story of living with achondroplasia, why she made the choice to get limb lengthening surgery and the latest news about the condition and what to expect from the upcoming annual conference.

If you’re a man over the age of 45 experiencing urgent or frequent urinary symptoms, or if you feel like you’re spending a lot of time planning your next bathroom trip, it might be time to talk to your doctor about your prostate health. Urologist, Dr Gregg Eure joins me to talk about the condition called benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) and new minimally invasive treatment options.